Sunday, March 15, 2009

Carnival Of Cars: Ides Of March Edition

Mark Tapscott, after doing yoemans work on Carnival Of Cars (which, you may remember, was started here) has been fairly silent lately. So, with a tip of the hat to Mark, I'm going to pick up CoC sporadically for a while.

Sooooo... let's set the choke and jump on the kickstart lever...

GM's Fastlane Blog discusses the concept of "well to wheels" emissions, or Life Cycle Analysis. According to Norm Brinkman, Argonne National Labs found that "E85 using ethanol made from corn reduced CO2 by about 20 percent compared with gasoline while ethanol made from cellulosic energy crops reduced CO2 by about 75 percent."

At TTAC, Ken Elias writes on how to save the U.S. auto industry: "Lead, follow or get out of the way. The feds should force GM to follow Ford’s example. Chrysler should get out of the way. And then, with American talent and determination, our auto industry can once again be the envy of the world."

Steve Parker bring us an LA Times story which tells how Obama has ended the controversial (especially if you are a Teamster) policy of allowing Mexican trucks to operate inside of 25 miles of the U.S. from Mexico.

Over at the AUTOEXTREMIST, Peter De Lorenzo lays down several pages of napalm. Don't read the rant unless you are ready to buy a new monitor. An excerpt: "I’m tired of the auto industry being treated like an old broken down piece of meat or something that should be taken out back and shot. Our so-called “leaders” in Washington - particularly certain senators and representatives who should know better - have relegated an entire industry to the dust heap. And why? So a few idiot southern senators can tout their states as the “new” center of the auto industry? Or is it because Detroit and the center of industrial America don’t quite fit into the new “Green” world that Northern Californian politicians want to shove down our collective throats?" Preach it, brother!

Trollhattan Saab has shut down, but is being reborn over at Saabs United. There, rumors are reported that a Sheikh Maktoum may be interested in investing in Saab. Rock the casbah!

At IfItsGotAnEngine, a tale of smashing a piano, followed by learning how to repair pianos, all due to sloppy Tacoma loading.

Autoblog reports that researchers have invented self healing auto paint. Impregnated with chitosan, the paint will re-connect with itself to smooth out the scratch. A note to our Jewish readers, chitosan comes from crustacean shells, so licking your car would not be kosher. Especially if it is a VW.

Jalopnik claims that unemployed UAW guys will be retrained to make fashionable hats. I'd be fact-checking this one.